KARACHI, Pakistan — Gunmen killed more than 40 people on Wednesday aboard a bus in southern Pakistan bound for a Shiite community centre, in the latest attack targeting the religious minority.

The attack in the port city of Karachi was the deadliest Pakistan has seen in months. Provincial police chief Ghulam Haider Jamali said 43 people were killed, including 16 women, and another 13 people were wounded.

The bus was in a relatively deserted area on the outskirts of the city en route to a community centre for Ismaili Shiite Muslims when six gunmen boarded it and opened fire, Jamali said. The attackers then fled on three motorcycles.

RIZWAN TABASSUM/AFP/Getty ImagesSecurity personnel make way for ambulances carrying the bodies of Shiite Muslims after the attack in Karachi Wednesday.

“These are the people who are extremists, who are terrorists,” Jamali said of the assailants. “These are the same people who have been doing terrorism before.”

Qadir Baluch, a security guard at a nearby building, said he heard the gunshots and saw the militants driving away. He said one of them was wearing a police uniform.

Local TV showed the bus riddled with bullets and panicked relatives crying at the scene or waiting at the hospital.

RIZWAN TABASSUM/AFP/Getty ImagesMedia gather at the scene of the attack Wednesday.

A splinter faction of the Pakistani Taliban called Jundullah, or Army of God, claimed responsibility for the attack. A man purporting to be a spokesman for the group called The Associated Press from an undisclosed location and said “infidels were the target.” The purported spokesman, Ahmad Marwat, has conveyed similar claims in the past.

The Taliban and other Sunni militant groups have long had a presence in Karachi. Sunni extremists view Shiites as apostates and have targeted them in the past, though attacks on the Ismaili branch have been rare. Qasim Shah, an Ismaili community member, said the bus service had been operating for the last 10 years.

“They were innocent people,” said Qaim Ali Shah, the chief minister of Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital. “We feel very sorry for this ghastly act.”

Wednesday’s attack was the deadliest in Pakistan since December, when Taliban militants killed 150 people, mostly young students, at an army-run school in Peshawar.

ASIF HASSAN/AFP/Getty ImagesShiite Muslims react in the aftermath of the attack.

The Pakistani Taliban have been fighting for more than a decade to overthrow the government and impose a harsh version of Islamic law. Their attacks have killed tens of thousands of people.

Pakistan launched a major military operation nearly a year ago in the North Waziristan tribal region along the Afghan border, where the Taliban and other militant groups had long found safe haven.

Pakistani army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif cancelled a three-day visit to Sri Lanka after Wednesday’s attack. He and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited Kabul on Tuesday, where they pledged to work with the Afghan government to fight militants.

An Agence-France Presse photographer was shot and injured as Pakistani police dispersed demonstrators who were protesting Charlie Hebdo’s publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

Student members of Jamaat-e-Islami, a religious political party, tried to march toward the French Consulate in Karachi today. Scuffles broke out between participants and the police when officials tried to block their way. About 200 protesters gathered at the site, according to police. The party claimed 2,500 people attended.

AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty ImagesAt least three people were injured in clashes between anti-Charlie Hebdo protesters and police outside the French consulate in Pakistan's Karachi, officials said, including an AFP photographer who was shot in the back.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the lower house of parliament yesterday condemned the publication of the cartoons in the Paris-based satirical weekly. Twelve people were killed in the initial attack on Charlie Hebdo, which had received threats because of an earlier depiction of Muhammad. After a manhunt for the killers, 17 people were dead in Paris’s deadliest attacks in more than half a century.

A photographer for AFP was shot and hurt, the agency said, without providing details. A protester and a policeman were also injured, according to Seemi Jamali, spokeswoman for the Jinnah Hospital in Karachi.

AP Photo/Mohammad SajjadPakistani protesters burn a representation of a French flag during a protest against caricatures published in the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, in Peshawar, Pakistan.

Police resorted to firing after “a journalist was injured from a bullet that was fired from the crowd,” Abdul Khaliq Sheikh, a senior police officer, said by phone. “Police resorted to using the water cannon then tear gas to stop them but they wouldn’t listen.”

Television channels showed images of riot police with rifles throwing sticks and stones at protesters who shouted slogans against the cartoons.

SIF HASSAN/AFP/Getty ImagesPakistani activists of the Jamaat-e-Islami religious party throw stones toward riot police during a protest against the printing of satirical sketches of the Prophet Muhammad by French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Karachi.

“Police needlessly fired shots at our peaceful protest,” Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman, a spokesman for the Jamaat-e-Islami said by phone from Karachi. “The participants were going to the French Consulate peacefully when police resorted to aggression. Several of our boys have been injured.”

The French consulate is located in an upscale neighborhood in Karachi’s south, where residents heard gunfire and roads quickly became deserted.

“Such a needless show of strength will only push Pakistan further toward isolation,” Mutaher Ahmed Sheikh, professor of international relations at the University of Karachi, said by phone. “Religion is an overwhelmingly sensitive issue in Pakistan and if there was a peaceful protest, it should have been allowed.”

Paramilitary troops arrived in the area soon after the clashes, Samaa TV reported, without saying where it got the information. The party has planned several protests across different cities to condemn the cartoons.

AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty ImagesSupporters of Pakistani political and Islamic party Jammat-e-Islami (JI) chant slogans during a protest against the printing of satirical sketches of the Prophet Muhammad by French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Islamabad on January 16, 2014.

KARACHI, Pakistan — Alongside the carnage of Pakistan’s massive earthquake came a new creation: a small island of mud, stone and bubbling gas pushed forth from the seabed.

Experts say the island was formed by the massive movement of the earth during the 7.7-magnitude quake that hit Pakistan’s Baluchistan province on Tuesday, killing at least 285 people.

“That big shock beneath the earth causes a lot of disturbance,” said Zahid Rafi, director of the National Seismic Monitoring Center.

The island appeared off the coast of Gwadar, a port about 533 kilometers from Pakistan’s largest city of Karachi and 120 kilometers from Iran.

Navy geologist Mohammed Danish told Pakistan’s Geo Television that a Pakistani Navy team visited the island Wednesday. He said the mass was about 18 meters high, 30 meters wide and 76 meters long, making it a little wider than a tennis court and slightly shorter than a football field.

Such islands are not entirely unusual to scientists who study the earth and its sometimes violent movements.

Marco Bohnhoff, a professor of seismology at the German Center for Geosciences in Potsdam said there are two ways such islands can be created.

In the first scenario, the earth’s crust violently lifts up out of the water. In the second, the earthquake triggers the movement and release of gases locked in the earth resulting in a flow called a “mud volcano.”

Experts are still trying to determine what caused this island, but it could have been a mud volcano, Rafi said. Scientists will have to analyze the material to see what it’s made of.

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The island’s appearance electrified people along the coast who flocked to the beach and took to boats to visit the island, despite warnings from officials who worried about gas emanating from the island.

The deputy commissioner of Gwadar district, Tufail Baloch, traveled by boat to the island Wednesday.

Water bubbled along the edges of the island, in what appeared to be gas discharging, Baloch said. He said the area smelled of gas that caused a flash when people lit cigarettes.

Dead fish floated on the water’s surface, and local residents took stones from the land mass as souvenirs, he said.

BEHRAM BALOCH/AFP/Getty ImagesThis photograph taken on September 25, 2013, shows Pakistani residents as they gather on an island that appeared some two kilometres off the coastline of Gwadar after an earthquake

Unlike lava volcanoes that harden when they come to the surface and cool, mud volcanoes generally don’t create steep or hard rock structures, Bornhoff said, although they can last for long periods of time.

Such land masses have appeared before off Pakistan’s Makran coast, said Muhammed Arshad, a hydrographer with the navy. After quakes in 1999 and 2010, new land masses rose up along a different part of the coast about 282 kilometers east of Gwadar, he said.

Each of those disappeared back into the sea within a year during the stormy monsoon season that sweeps Pakistan every summer, he said.

Santana reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writer Asif Shahzad in Islamabad also contributed to this report.

BEHRAM BALOCH/AFP/Getty ImagesThis photograph taken on September 25, 2013, shows Pakistani residents as they arrive by boat to an island that appeared some two kilometres off the coastline at Gwadar after an earthquake.

KARACHI, Pakistan — A car bomb exploded outside a mosque on Sunday, killing at least 37 people and wounding another 141 in a neighbourhood dominated by Shiite Muslims in the southern Pakistan city of Karachi.

No one has taken responsibility for the bombing, but Shiites Muslims have been increasingly targeted by Sunni militant groups in Karachi, Pakistan’s economic hub and site of years of police, sectarian and ethnic violence.

The bomb exploded outside a Shiite mosque as people were leaving evening prayers. Initial reports suggested the bomb was rigged to a motorcycle, but a top police official, Shabbir Sheikh, said later that an estimated 100 kilograms of explosives was planted in a car.

Col. Pervez Ahmad, an official with a Pakistani paramilitary force called the Rangers, said a chemical used in the blast caught fire and spread the destruction beyond the blast site. Several buildings nearby were engulfed in flames.

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Men and women wailed and ambulances rushed to the scene where residents tried to find victims buried in the rubble of collapsed buildings. The blast left a crater that was two metres wide and more than one metre deep.

“I heard a huge blast. I saw flames,” said Syed Irfat Ali, a resident who described how people were crying and trying to run to safety.

A top government official, Taha Farooqi, said at least 37 people were confirmed dead and 141 more were wounded.

Sunni militant groups have stepped up attacks in the past year against Shiite Muslims who make up about 20 per cent of Pakistan’s population of 180 million people. Sunni militants linked to al-Qaida and the Taliban view Shiites as heretics.

Tahira Begum, a relative of a blast victim, demanded the government take strict action against the attackers.

“Where is the government?” she asked during an interview with local Aaj News TV. “Terrorists roam free. No one dares to catch them.”

Two brazen attacks against a Shiite Hazara community in southwestern city of Quetta killed nearly 200 people since Jan 10. Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for the bombings, which ripped through a billiard club and a market in areas populated by Hazaras, which are mostly Muslim Shiites.

Pakistan’s intelligence agencies helped nurture Sunni militant groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in the 1980s and 1990s to counter a perceived threat from neighbouring Iran, which is mostly Shiite. Pakistan banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in 2001, but the group continues to attack Shiites.

According to Human Rights Watch, more than 400 Shiites were killed last year in targeted attacks across the country, the worst year on record for anti-Shiite violence in Pakistan. The human rights group said more than 125 were killed in Baluchistan province. Most of them belonged to the Hazara community.

Human rights groups have accused the government of not doing enough to protect Shiites.

After the Jan 10 bombing, the Hazara community held protests, which spread to other parts of the country. The protesters refused to bury their dead for several days while demanding a military-led crackdown against the Lashkar-e-Jhanvi group. Pakistan’s president dismissed the provincial government and assigned a governor to run Baluchistan province.

No operation was launched against the militant group until another bombing in February killed 89 people.

The government then ordered a police operation and has said some members of the group have been arrested. One of the founders of the group, Malik Ishaq, was among those detained and officials said he could be questioned to determine if his group’s is linked to the latest violence against Shiites.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/37-killed-141-wounded-by-car-bomb-in-shiite-muslim-area-of-southern-pakistan/feed0stdPakistani paramedics shift an injured bomb blast victim in a hospital in Karachi on March 3, 2013. A bomb attack in Pakistan's largest city Karachi on March 3 killed at least 45 people, including women and children, and wounded 150 others, police said.Horrific factory fires in Pakistan burn at least 283 people to deathhttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/horrific-factory-fires-in-pakistan-burn-at-least-261-people-to-death
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KARACHI, Pakistan — Fires at two clothing factories in Pakistan left 283 people dead — many trapped behind locked doors and barred windows — tragedies that highlight workplace perils in a country where many buildings lack basic safety equipment and owners often bribe officials to ignore the violations.

The blazes broke out Tuesday night at a garment factory in the southern port city of Karachi and a shoe manufacturer in the eastern city of Lahore. At least 258 people died in the fire in Karachi, where rescue workers were still searching Wednesday for bodies in the charred building. Another 25 perished in Lahore.

Panicked workers in Karachi had only one way out since the factory’s owner had locked all the other exit doors in response to a recent theft, officials said. Many victims suffocated in the smoke-filled basement.

“The owner of the factory should also be burned to death the way our dear ones have died in a miserable condition,” said Nizam-ud-Din, whose nephew was killed in the fire, one of the deadliest industrial accidents in Pakistani history.

Police were searching for the factory’s managers and placed the owner on a list of people who are not allowed to leave the country, said Roshan Ali Sheikh, a top government official in Karachi.

“It is a criminal act to lock the emergency exit doors, and we are trying to know who did it, and why,” Sheikh said.

AP Photo/Fareed Khan woman looks for her missing family member at a morgue in Karachi, Pakistan, Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012. Pakistani officials say the death toll from devastating factory fires that broke out in two major cities has killed hundreds

The fire started when a boiler exploded and the flames ignited chemicals that were stored in the factory, which manufactured jeans and other clothes for export. Between 300 and 400 workers were inside when the blaze erupted.

Many of the deaths were caused by suffocation as people trapped in the basement were unable to escape when it filled with smoke, said Karachi fire chief Ehtisham-ud-Din.

Those on the upper floors of the five-story building had to break through metal bars covering the windows so they could leap to safety. Dozens were injured doing so, including a 27-year-old pregnant woman.

“When smoke spread all around, I jumped out the window in panic,” said Mohammad Shahzad, who broke an arm and a leg when he hit the ground. “I found myself in the hospital when I regained my senses.”

ASIF HASSAN/AFP/GettyImagesPakistani firefighters work to extinguish a sudden fire after it trapped dozens of workers in a factory in Lahore on September 11, 2012. At least 21 workers were killed and 14 wounded when fire gutted the shoe-making factory in the eastern city of Lahore, hospital officials said

Others burned to death as they tried to wriggle through the barred windows.

“There were no safety measures taken in the building design,” said senior police official Amir Farooqi. “There was no emergency exit. These people were trapped.”

Firefighters were still battling the blaze Wednesday. The death toll spiked as they entered previously inaccessible parts of the factory and found scores more bodies. The death toll stood at 258 by Wednesday evening, including a 10-year-old boy, said Sheikh. Another 31 people were injured.

Rani Bibi said her two sons-in-law called Tuesday night to say they were trapped in the factory and asked her to tell their wives to take good care of their children. She hasn’t heard from them since, and couldn’t find their bodies in any of the hospitals in the city.

“We don’t know where they are,” said Bibi, tears flowing down her face. “I hope to hear their voices. My two daughters’ lives are ruined.”

The fire that swept through the four-story shoe factory in Lahore left 25 people dead, some from burns and others from suffocation, said senior police officer Multan Khan.

The fire broke out as workers were trying to start a generator after electricity went out in the building. Sparks from the generator made contact with chemicals used to make shoes, igniting the blaze, which blocked the only exit. Firefighters had to break through the building’s brick walls to save people, officials said.

Raza Rumi, an analyst at the Islamabad-based Jinnah Institute, said the fire in Karachi was one of the deadliest industrial accidents in the country’s history.

“It is reflective of the utter collapse of regulation and the enforcement of labour laws in the country,” he said.

The problem has gotten worse in recent years as the federal government handed over factory oversight to provincial authorities, but local governments failed to develop legislation enforcing labour laws or basic safety regulations, Rumi said. Many Pakistani factories lack even basic safety equipment, such as alarms and sprinklers.

In Punjab province, where Lahore is the capital, authorities abolished labour inspections altogether in 2003 to develop a more “business-friendly environment,” Rumi said.

It was unclear whether anger over the fires in Karachi and Lahore will prompt provincial governments to focus on passing new labour regulations.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/horrific-factory-fires-in-pakistan-burn-at-least-261-people-to-death/feed1stdPakistani rescuers move the dead body of a garment factory worker after fire erupted in the factory in Karachi on September 12, 2012. More than 261 people have perished in devastating fires that gutted factories in Pakistan's two largest cities, raising fresh concerns about workplace safety, officials said woman looks for her missing family member at a morgue in Karachi, Pakistan, Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012. Pakistani officials say the death toll from devastating factory fires that broke out in two major cities has killed hundredsPakistani firefighters work to extinguish a sudden fire after it trapped dozens of workers in a factory in Lahore on September 11, 2012. At least 21 workers were killed and 14 wounded when fire gutted the shoe-making factory in the eastern city of Lahore, hospital officials saidPakistani police rescue 54 students chained by clerics in the basement of an Islamic seminaryhttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/pakistani-police-rescue-54-students-chained-by-clerics-in-the-basement-of-an-islamic-seminary
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By Imtiaz Shah

KARACHI — Police in the Pakistani city of Karachi have rescued 54 students from the basement of an Islamic seminary, or madrassa, where they said they were kept in chains by clerics, beaten and barely fed.

Police raided the Zakariya madrassa late on Monday on the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan’s commercial hub. They were now investigating whether it had any links to violent militant groups, which often recruit from hardline religious schools.

Most victims had signs of severe torture, and had developed wounds from the chains, police said. The main cleric of the madrassa escaped during the raid.

“Those 50 boys who were kept in such an environment like animals,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik told journalists.

Many of the students — who varied in age from 15 to 45 and were kept 30 to a room — were still in chains while shown on television.

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“I was there for 30 days and I did not seen the sky or the sun even once,” Zainullah Khan, 21, told Reuters at a police station where the students were questioned and then released to their relatives.

“I was whipped with a rubber belt and forced to beg for food.”

Student Mohi-ud-Din said: “I was kept in the basement for the past month and was kept in chains. They also tortured me severely during this period. I was beaten with sticks.”

REUTERS/Athar HussainA student looks through the bars of a room in a police station after being rescued during a late night raid at the Zakariya madrassa on the outskirts of Karachi on December 13, 2011

Senior police official Rao Anwar said many of those rescued were drug addicts brought to the seminary for treatment.

“These people were not taken to the madrassa forcefully. In fact the parents of many of them had themselves got their children admitted there,” he said.

“Some of them are drug addicts, and others involved in other crimes, and they were tortured and kept in chains so that they did not run away.”

A man who identified himself as Abdullah told local television that he had brought his 35-year-old drug addict brother to the madrassa for rehabilitation.

“The chains are not a problem. They are needed because without them heroin addicts run away,” he said.

Thousands of madrassas are spread across Pakistan, which is fighting an insurgency by al Qaeda-linked Taliban militants.

Many people are too poor to afford non-religious schools or feel state institutions are inadequate so they send their children to madrassas, where they memorize the Koran, learn Arabic and study the traditions of Islam.

Many madrassas offer free boarding and lodging. Some of the more extreme schools churn out fighters and suicide bombers for militant groups like the Taliban or al Qaeda.

One man was disappointed because his drug addict son had been rescued because the madrassa was rehabilitating him.

“I wish my son could have stayed another four months,” said Abdul Hafeez.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/pakistani-police-rescue-54-students-chained-by-clerics-in-the-basement-of-an-islamic-seminary/feed5stdStudents wear chains around their ankles while sitting with their belongings at a police station after being rescued during a late night raid at the Zakariya madrassa on the outskirts of Karachi on December 13, 2011. Police in Karachi have rescued 54 students from the basement of an Islamic seminary, or madrassa, where they said they were kept in chains by clerics, beaten and barely fed. Police raided the Zakariya madrassa late on Monday on the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan's commercial hub. They were now investigating whether it had any links to violent militant groups, which often recruit from hardline religious schoolsA student looks through the bars of a room in a police station after being rescued during a late night raid at the Zakariya madrassa on the outskirts of Karachi on December 13, 2011Pakistan changes rules of engagement in wake of NATO attackhttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/pakistan-changes-rules-of-engagement-in-wake-of-nato-attack
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By Qasim Nauman and Michael Georgy

Pakistan’s commanders in the wild Afghan border region can return fire if under attack without waiting for permission, the army chief said on Friday, a policy change that could stoke tensions after Saturday’s NATO strike killed 24 Pakistani troops.

Exactly what happened in the attack is unclear. Two U.S. officials told Reuters early indications were that Pakistani officials had cleared the NATO air strike, unaware they had troops in the area. A Pakistani official denied this.

The attack sparked fury in Pakistan and further complicated U.S.-led efforts to ease a crisis in relations with Islamabad, still seething at a secret U.S. raid in May which killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and stabilize the region before foreign combat troops leave Afghanistan in 2014.

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“I do not want there to be any doubt in the minds of any commander at any level about the rules of engagement,” Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Kayani said in a communique on Friday.

“In case of any attack, you have complete liberty to respond forcefully using all available resources. You do not need any permission for this.”

A military source explained that this amounted to a change in the rules for Pakistani forces guarding the Western border against militant movements to and from Afghanistan.

“In the past, we were only guarding ourselves or reacting against militants,” said the source, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

“We have given our posts some more space to respond. If they are under attack, they should not wait for orders from above on whether to return fire or not.”

The increase in autonomy for local commanders is likely to raise tensions in the unruly and mountainous border region, which is porous and poorly marked. Militants and tribespeople alike move back and forth daily.

“There are certain inherent risks in the delegation of authority,” said defense analyst and retired general Talat Masood. “There could be unintended consequences.”

Exactly what happened at the Pakistani posts along an unruly and poorly defined border is still unclear.

Pakistan said the attack was unprovoked, with officials calling it an act of blatant aggression — an accusation the top U.S. military officer flatly rejected in an interview with Reuters.

Two U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday that preliminary information from the ongoing investigation indicated Pakistani officials at a border coordination center had cleared the air strike, unaware they had troops in the area.

The U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to confirm details first reported by the Wall Street Journal, said an Afghan-led assault force that included U.S. commandos came under fire from an encampment along the border with Pakistan.

The commandos thought they were being fired on by militants but instead the fire came from Pakistani troops, they said.

A Pakistani military official categorically denied that account, saying the aircraft had already engaged when Pakistan was contacted.

“Wrong information about the area of operation was provided to Pakistani officials a few minutes before the strike,” said the official, who was not authorized to speak to the media.

“Without getting clearance from the Pakistan side, the post had already been engaged by U.S. helicopters and fighter jets. Pakistan did not have any prior information about any operation in the area.”

In a statement on its public relations website, Pakistan’s military said that its response to the NATO strike was hampered by an inability to scramble its aircraft in time.

“The response could have been more effective if PAF (Pakistan Air Force) had also joined in. However, it was no fault of PAF,” the statement said.

“The timely decision could not be taken due to breakdown of communication with the affected posts and, therefore, lack of clarity of situation, at various levels, including the Corps Headquarters and GHQ (General Headquarters).”

The Pentagon has declined to comment on details from the investigation until it is complete. Pentagon spokesman George Little acknowledged at a news conference that Pakistan had been asked but “elected to date not to participate” in the inquiry.

SOUND AND FURY

The United States and NATO have promised to investigate the incident, expressing regret on the deaths of Pakistani soldiers but the White House said it was premature to consider an apology when an investigation was still in its early stages.

Pakistan has shown its anger over the attack by blocking ground supply routes for NATO forces in Afghanistan, and pulling out of an international conference in Germany next week on Afghanistan, depriving the talks of a central player in peace efforts.

“I think it’s safe to say that the incident has had a chilling effect on our relationship with the Pakistani military. No question about that,” said another Pentagon spokesman, Captain John Kirby.

Western leaders have urged Islamabad to rethink its decision to boycott the conference, but the Pakistani parliament’s national security committee Friday endorsed the decision.

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said Pakistan’s contributions to regional peace efforts have not been appreciated and his country has become a scapegoat for the “failings of international policies in Afghanistan.”

“Clearly, there is a limit to our patience. Cooperation cannot be a one-way street,” he said.

In Karachi, calls for defiance laced Friday prayer sermons.

“This (the NATO attack) is sheer cruelty and the rulers and the public must join hands to defend our country,” an imam said at the Jamia Masjid mosque in an upscale neighborhood. “It’s time we decide that we can spend our lives as poor people but not as slaves of Western powers.

“We should have complete faith in Allah, and if you follow Islam in the true spirit, we will have no problems surviving even if the U.S. and Western powers don’t like us.”

At a rally by the militant group Sipah-e-Sahaba, some 2,000 protesters held placards that read: “Jihad is the only response to the U.S.” and “Friends of the U.S. are traitors to Islam.”

In the city of Multan in southern Punjab, at a demonstration organized by an Islamist group, Abdul Ghaffar, 45, said: “We’re going to teach America the kind of lesson that is going to make them forget about Vietnam.”

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/pakistan-changes-rules-of-engagement-in-wake-of-nato-attack/feed13stdA student holds a placard during an anti-American demonstration near the U.S. consulate in Karachi on Friday.Pakistani woman kills her husband, attempts to cook him after he planned to marry anotherhttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/pakistani-woman-kills-her-husband-attempts-to-cook-him-after-he-planned-to-marry-another
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KARACHI — Pakistani police on Thursday arrested a woman who had killed her husband and was attempting to cook his body parts after he planned to marry another woman without her permission.

The police arrested Zainab Bibi, 32, and her nephew Zaheer, 22, in the Shah Faisal colony of Pakistan’s southern megacity Karachi, and recovered the bowl of flesh she planned to cook, said police chief for the area Nadeem Baig.

“They killed Ahmed Abbas, Zainab’s husband, and chopped his body into pieces and were about to cook the flesh in a bowl,” he told AFP, adding that the knife with which they killed the man had been recovered.

Television networks showed gruesome footage of the human flesh in a bowl ready for the stove.

A neighbour had alerted the police and investigations were ongoing, said Baig.

“There could be two factors behind her intention to cook the husband. One is to destroy the evidence and the other could be her immense hatred against him,” over his plan to marry another woman, he said.

According to family law in the Islamic country, a man has get permission from his first wife before his second marriage, but the law is rarely observed.

KARACHI — A Pakistani nuclear power plant imposed a seven-hour emergency after heavy water leaked from a feeder pipe to the reactor, but no radiation or damage has been reported, an official said on Thursday.

The leakage at the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant, commonly known as KANUPP, started around midnight on Tuesday during a routine maintenance shut down, said Tariq Rashid, a plant spokesman.

The 137-megawatt power plant, which started commercial operations in 1972, is located about 24 km (15 miles) to the west of Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city and commercial capital, on the Arabian Sea coast.

“The plant was already shut down since Oct. 5 and the leakage started during maintenance checks,” said Rashid.

He said the emergency was imposed at the plant immediately after the leak and the affected area was isolated. The emergency was lifted seven hours later, after the leak was brought under control.

“The situation is completely under control and no damage or radiation has been reported, though it will slightly delay the reopening of the plant,” Rashid said. He said the plant will be operational again in 4-5 weeks.

KANUPP supplies 80 megawatts of power to the Karachi Electric Supply Co, the city’s main power utility.

The plant completed its 30-year design life in 2002 and underwent upgrades to extend operations.

“Currently it is well designed to work till at least 2015,” said Rashid.

Karachi’s peak power demand is up to 2,500 megawatts.

Pakistan has two commercial nuclear complexes. The other is located at Chashma in the Punjab province. Nuclear power accounts for only about 2 percent of total power supplies.

China, which helped build the Chasma complex, plans to help Pakistan expand there by building two more reactors in addition to the two already operating there.

Safety is a major concern in Pakistan’s existing and future nuclear power plants, which analysts say are derived from designs dating back to the 1970s.